12. Chapter 12
Chapter twelve
Lina
While sharing wings with EJ—we talked—a lot. No flirting. No playful banter. Actual conversation. The kind that belongs on a date. The kind where you learn something about the other person and decide whether this was a mistake or not.
This was definitely a mistake.
I hadn’t realized how limited my knowledge of EJ was until he started speaking.
The stories were endless.
Our usual routine never required words. I go to his place, we fall into his bed, and the night blurs until exhaustion takes over. I get up and leave before morning. No daylight.
This…sitting across from him, picking at wings, and making small talk, was an entirely different kind of intimacy. And it was ruining everything.
The more he talked, the more the gaps between our personalities showed. How little we actually have in common. How casually insensitive he is, brushing off anything that requires empathy.
He talked about wanting to stay a single bachelor forever, like ambition is a government trap instead of a choice. Professionally, he has nothing to show for it. No plans. No curiosity. No hunger to build anything beyond the next weekend.
He has this house because his parents rent it to him for four hundred dollars a month.
Four hundred. I nearly choked, like it’s normal, like it’s something he earned.
He works for his father as a laborer for a construction company.
No college. No interest in it, either. No history of a long-term relationship.
No sense that he’s ever had to grow alongside someone, or for someone.
His evenings revolve around smoking weed until he passes out, or fucking until he does. Sometimes both. He said it like a joke. Like a lifestyle.
He also spent ten minutes telling me about a dream he supposedly had while taking a nap before I came over.
According to EJ, some terrifying man dressed entirely in black was standing over him in his living room. Black clothes. Black mask. Black hood. Apparently the guy had some kind of distorted voice that sounded “like a demon.”
I nearly choked on my drink.
EJ swore he wasn’t kidding.
He swore it felt real. Like there was actually someone standing in his house watching him. He even claimed the guy commanded him to go back to sleep.
When he woke up, he checked every room in the house.
Nothing.
No broken windows. No unlocked doors. No signs anyone had been there.
So naturally he decided he’d been incredibly high and dreamed the whole thing.
I realize EJ was passed out on the couch from being high only hours before I got here.
I observe him across the table, sauce on my fingers, and an unsettling sensation resides in my chest.
I’ve been sleeping with someone I would never, under any other circumstance, choose to associate with.
The attraction made him tolerable in the dark. The silence made him easy. But stripped of that, under dinner lighting, with conversation filling the space, I see him clearly.
And it’s completely sobering for my libido.
Because this? This is why EJ works best in the bedroom and nowhere else.
But now…now that I know everything about him, I don’t think I can un-know it—stick to what this was supposed to be. I can’t see him the way I used to—a distraction, a fix, a purely physical indulgence. A sexual drug I could take without consequences.
Ugh. Now I have to go home and take a cold shower.
“So, babe,” he says, smirking, leaning back in his chair. “Want to finish what we started?”
Hell no, I don’t.
“Actually,” I say, faking a yawn, “I’m exhausted. I think I’m going to head home and turn in. That, and I’m full of wings.” I gesture toward the table, the half-empty takeout between us.
“Really?” he asks. “You sure you don’t want to stay over?”
“Really. I haven’t been sleeping well,” I say, already reaching for keys in my coat pocket. “And we’ve got a busy morning at work. I’m going to go home and sleep until my alarm blares me awake.” I wince. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he says easily. “At least we got free wings tonight. Solid win.”
He smiles, relaxed, unbothered, leaning back, as nothing has shifted at all. He’s definitely still high.
Ugh…damn him and his stupidly sexy abs.
He’s still beautiful. Still incredible in bed. That hasn’t changed. But something else has.
Getting to know him has stripped away the mystery that made this work in the first place. The ignorance was part of the appeal.
Now, all I can think about is how young he seems. Not in years, he’s thirty-two, but in substance. And once that thought takes hold, I can’t shake it. It makes my skin crawl in a way attraction never should.
I hug him goodbye, quick and polite, before he can pull me back in.
The night air offers relief.
I slide into my car, exhale, and start the engine. My audiobook starts right where it left off.
Suddenly, my phone lights up in the cup holder. It’s been on silent since work.
Ring Notification. Motion Detected.
My stomach tightens.
Please don’t be a burglar trying to break into our shop.
Thank God Val doesn’t get these alerts anymore.
She used to. Every single one of them. Every delivery truck. Every passing car. Every stray cat that wandered too close to the front door.
The notifications came nonstop—buzzing her phone at all hours, yanking her awake the moment she’d gotten the baby down. It completely wrecked her sleep. Wrecked the baby’s routine. Turned every night into a series of false alarms and adrenaline spikes.
Eventually, I told her to turn them off.
I’ve got it. I’m already awake half the time, anyway. I’ll handle the alerts. You need rest.
She hadn’t argued. She looked relieved. Guilty. Exhausted. So she turned them off, and I became the one who watched the door.
Which means these notifications are mine to handle.
I tap the latest notification while stopped at a red light.
My stomach drops.
Someone is standing outside the shop. Right at the front door.
The Ring camera footage shakes slightly every few seconds.
It’s not from wind, but from someone pounding on the glass with enough intensity to jiggle the frame.
Once. Twice. Again.
“What the hell?”
I enlarge the video. The moment the image is clear, my pulse spikes.
Of course. Of fucking course. I know who it is. I don’t even need the next notification to confirm it.
My phone lights up again. And again. And again.
Ring alerts. Missed calls. Text messages. Voicemails. I look at the numbers and curse.
Forty text messages. Twenty-two missed calls. Ten voicemails.
Jesus Christ.
The fantasy audiobook playing through my speakers fades into meaningless background noise.
EJ, his abs, and his smirk disappear from my mind. All of it evaporates beneath a surge of adrenaline and anger.
Because while one fictional man is busy saving kingdoms, a very real idiot is currently trying to break down the front door of my bookstore.
I signal a turn and crank the wheel, and the Bronco responds without hesitation.
Whatever game Cole is playing today, he’s not doing it at my shop.